On the Internet, content sharing platforms allow users to connect to and share information with each other. Content sharing platforms typically include a content sharing aspect that allows users to upload, view, and/or share content, such as video content, image content, audio content, and so on. The content may include content from professional content creators, e.g., movie clips, TV clips, music videos and professional photographs, as well as content from amateur content creators, e.g., video blogging, short original videos and photo albums.
Content sharing platforms may permit users to find and select items from content using an axis (e.g., an X axis). The axis can have multiple selectable positions and each position can correspond to an item. When a user selects a given position on the axis, the corresponding item can be displayed in a graphical user interface (GUI). For example, the items may be individual pictures in a photo gallery row view or may be single frames in a video that a user may navigate through using a touch and grab control. A user can select a position on the axis using the touch and grab control to view an item that corresponds to that position.
Conventionally, finding and selecting, from content, an item on an axis when the content includes hundreds or thousands of items may be difficult. With a touch and grab control (referred to herein as a scrub tool), a user may not be able to scroll through the items on the axis with much accuracy. The scrolling may be too fast or too slow to select an appropriate item, which hinders the user experience. For example, targeting a specific frame in a two hour video may entail the user moving the scrub tool only a single pixel to the left or right which can be inconvenient and difficult, especially on a relatively small screen. In addition, conventional media scrub tools typically do not allow users to control the scrub rate. For example, conventional scrub bars often jump in increments that are defined as a percentage of the total length of content. For example, a conventional scrub bar may use 10 second increments for a two-hour movie, which may not provide a user with the ability to scrub to an exact position in the movie. Similarly, when scrubbing through many pictures in a photo album, conventional tools typically permit the user to advance one photo at a time.